Eye to Eye on Maori Party

Hooton pointed out that National has said it will offer the Maori Party a role, even if they don’t need them to govern. So up to the Maori Party if they want to play ball.

Derek Fox says up to National and Labour to decide what they will do, and they will decide after the election.

Chris Trotter says he used to think National and the Maori Party agreeing to work together in coalition or on confidence and supply as preposterous, but now it is more likely than the Maori Party supporting Labour!!!

Trotter also points out Maori Party will get National to drop Maori seats abolition policy as price of a deal.

Tamihere said Turia favours National, Sharples favours Labour, Flavell is all over the place and Harawira favours a more neutral cross-benches position. Not sure he would know, but an interesting analysis. Derek Fox has just said his analysis is completely at odds with the meetings he has been sitting in. Fox also says he is not conservative and rejects old labels like that.

He may use all this publicity to target the mad elderly Pakeha racist vote and get up to 5%

And this is Helen’s coalition partner he is describing!

Hooton points out that Maori Party would be one of many parties if a Labour-led Government is formed but with National could form a majority just with them probably.

Trotter says he thinks Labour does not want to deal with the Maori Party in his view, which is why they need Winston. If Winston is not there, National can form a stable Government with 46% of the vote.

So Labour is choosing Winston over the Maori Party!

Fox advocates merit of staying on cross-benches to avoid the fate of most minor parties in Government.

An amusing mistake by Hekia Parata as she said John Key had ruled out United Future when she meant NZ First. They joked Peter Dunne had already started slitting his wrists! Parata was very good on the show, and demonstrated why she will probably be a Minister during her first term in Parliament.

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Comments (12)

bringbackthebiff

Its interesting to see how the Maori Party role will play out in the possible scenarios the WP affair appears to be giving rise to. If Winston goes down, so will Winston First I presume. The greens could be in strife.

The nats would be in a tough position if they had to do as those unprincipled Labour thugs, and indeed nats of years gone by have, and sell out policy to get the treasury benches.

It is sad that in the political environment that exists today in NZ, that maori seats still exist. They should have been abolished long ago. They are a blight on maoridom. Do they not have astute politicians, are they so weak they need a leg up to get in the house, I think not. In fact they should stand proud and call for the abolition of these seats themselves.

Redbaiter

Disgraceful. That the Nats are seriously considering these thugs and racists as a coaltion partner is something that will be a serious negative in the upcoming election. Don Brash was right. Force the racists into the Labour camp. That is the strategy that will work.

philu

That’s interesting to see that Chris Trotter is changing his tune on the Maori Party. Although Trotter has tended to be ambivilent about the Maori Party, he has definitely painted them up as a leftwing force etc. when he should have known better. Trotter is well aware of the rightwing and non-working class tendencies within Maori radicalism/nationalism, and should therefore have foreseen that the future of the party is definitely not to the left of Labour.

I also think that he’s correct about the Maori Party getting the “abolition of the Maori seats” pushed totally off the agenda under a National-led government. That would be quite a feasible, obvious, and highly politically-valuable policy win for the Maori Party. And, of course there’s other possible policy wins that the Maori Party could use to justify some sort of arrangement with National, such as the repeal of the Seabed and Foreshore Act.

Mr Nobody NZ

Trotter can’t seriously think that the Maori Party are a Left Wing Party.

They’re neither Left or Right wing but rather they are simply “Maori”, who will saddle up to whom ever they believe will give them and Maori in general the best baubles. Perhaps they will become the next NZ First Party.

Lee C

‘He may use all this publicity to target the mad elderly Pakeha racist vote and get up to 5%’ Common knowledge. I remember reading a BBC transcript f Helen Clark likening Winston to Jean-Marie Le Pen the French Nazi and anti-semite earlier this year! She is much more reserved over here, though, perhaps because she likes to brand herself as a radical leftie abroad.

I think they could well decide the next goverment just as Winston decided the last. I applaud and support John KEY ruling Winston out but he can’t rule them all out and of course the first concession he would have to make would be no poll on MMP.

Adolf Fiinkensein

Penelope, isn’t that smacking rather than MMP? Anyway, why should the Maori Party give a stuff about MMP? They don’t benefit from it. They win electorates, dear people. They really are third past the post.

riki

“He may use all this publicity to target the mad elderly Pakeha racist vote and get up to 5%”

““Maori”, who will saddle up to whom ever they believe will give them and Maori in general the best baubles. Perhaps they will become the next NZ First Party.”

Both interesting insights. In fact Redbaiter inferred we will become another Zimbabwe under Maori.

Will this be the angle Winston will peddle in his campaign. He can never win Maori confidence back again. Can he truly publicly turn his back on Maori?

Maori have a right to be represented in the best way they see fit. I seriously doubt gray power are going to be a threat to their aspirations. JK has shown an open mind to Maori ambitions and will get their support. Maori influence in the National party will be a side issue National now tolerates and incorparates. Much the same as the black wing of the GOP.
I admire the GOP has that wing. We should admire National having that wing.
it’s a reality, its a fact of life, its a new paradigm. If we can’t accept or roll with paradigm change we’ll be squashed by it.

Right of centre is something I can understand now, because I understand left of centre so well. The far right is dangerous but the far left is dragging this country down now, and if Maori help to erode that destruction, not only are they preserving democracy, they are saving this generation from becoming political criminals much the same as anyone who resisted the facists in germany or the Communists in Russia. And both of them had the name ‘socialist’ in their titles.